<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>You're Somebody Else by 48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24834721">You're Somebody Else</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/pseuds/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue'>48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>2019 reuploads, Don't copy to another site, Episode: s14e07 Unhuman Nature, Horror, M/M, S14 Spoilers, Self-Blame, Trans Sam Winchester, my usual Sam and Lucifer meta, pure angst</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 05:00:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,844</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24834721</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue/pseuds/48eyesand32teeth1sharptongue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick reflects on Sam and Lucifer. Sam and Jack deal with feelings.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>I guess unhealthy Sam/Lucifer/Nick if you squint, Jack Kline &amp; Sam Winchester, Lucifer &amp; Nick (Supernatural), Lucifer/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You're Somebody Else</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>fic title a song by flora cash</p><p>also this one's really old and flawed but whatever</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ever since Jack knew he was dying, Sam has told him stories every night.</p><p>Sam always was trying to make Jack comfortable, to find answers, to be strong-</p><p>But they both know they're both falling apart at the seams.</p><p>That's half the reason Jack's been trying to avoid him.</p><p>Dying seems less scary when you can't lose the people you love most, and every second with Sam reminds Jack just how much he loves him, and how he'd do anything to take his place, if given the opportunity.</p><p>--</p><p>"Abraxas. I know that name." Nick muses. No... "Lucifer knew that name."</p><p>After Lucifer burnt out of him, it was hard to remember almost anything. So much of their minds had been conjoined, it was like Nick's mind had been set on fire, too.</p><p>And the reality of Nick's own culpability, of how he'd been pulled on strings just like Sam, only never seen them...</p><p>He doesn't really feel like he lost anything.</p><p>He's been worn by Lucifer too long to feel anything close to anger, and really, he knows his own weakness. He let the Devil in, and wasn't strong enough to stop him, and hadn't even tried to, really.</p><p>And Nick considers sympathy. He knows possession. Knows how it removes you from the feelings behind the movements, knows how other feelings flood your brain.</p><p>But when push comes to shove, it was this body that killed his family.</p><p>Just like it was his body that chose this, and gave Lucifer free reign. Nick felt everything Lucifer had ever done.</p><p>It was still him.</p><p>"It was still you." Nick says. "I can't let that slide."</p><p>Because everyone else was just like him. Deserved to be punished, because if Nick could choose anything at all, he would punish everyone else for his own damn weakness.</p><p>The hammer feels powerful in his hand, and the blood feels like coming home, as if Lucifer is back inside him again, and then everything would make sense.</p><p>Nick misses him. </p><p>Nick misses how happy he was, destroying, and how he'd let Nick feel happy, too.</p><p>--</p><p>Later, Nick tries to repent.</p><p>He shouldn't hate Lucifer.</p><p>Lucifer had freed him from himself, and he missed that, too.</p><p>Nick sighs. "I say that I do the terrible things I do because I couldn't save Sarah and Teddy. And once I did, I'd be free of this darkness and this rage."</p><p>But it doesn't end. It never ends.</p><p>"But I lied." Nick rasps, staring at nothing, and says, to the empty air, "Truth is, I like doing these things. And I don't want to stop. I'm bonded to you, and what you are. I mean, it's... It's how you first found me." Nick trails off, then sobs, "I don't know who I am when I'm not you. No consequences, no pain, no sorrow-"</p><p>No remorse or regret or self-reflection. Just clarity.</p><p>"I want that back. I want it back. I don't want to feel now what I didn't feel then."</p><p>You were power.</p><p>And you taught me how to like it. You made it all easy.</p><p>And I don't want to feel small, and helpless, and weak like I know I am. You made it better.</p><p>"Help me." Nick prays.</p><p>And something inside him feels alive again.</p><p>--</p><p>It's not the prayer that brings Lucifer back. It helps, certainly, as does the accidental ritual murder, even if Nick is not wholly aware of that.</p><p>But it's more the leftover Nephilim Grace that been safely tucked inside Nick this whole time. That certainly helps. Keeping them tied together, keeping Nick's soul tied up with Lucifer's- which is how he can call out in the first place. And if Jack suffers and dies slowly the more Lucifer pulls on his link to the land of the living and crawls his way out of the Empty, well, that's just a bonus for Jack being such a disappointment.</p><p>Truthfully, Nick is an easy mark, and always has been, thanks to the grief and self-blame and eagerness to feel nothing at all. He was even more accommodating after he got burned out the first time. That's why Nick fit so well in the first place- all that helplessness andÂ rage and emptiness needed to go somewhere. It was inconvenient once they got back together, sometimes, sure- Nick was so damn sentimental and attached to the idea of family, broken in all the same bitter ways Lucifer once was after he was torn from everything- which is sometimes why Lucifer wonders if that's half the reason he was optimistic about trying to make a family of his own, if some part of Nick's subconscious influence had seeped through anyway, blinding him to the many betrayals of family he'd long since grown used to. The alcoholism and avoidance of Sam was probably his fault, too, although Lucifer has more than one reason for not tormenting Sam more intimately after doing whatever he wants, even aside from Nick's odd aversion to engaging. Sam has a habit of being a pain in the ass, and until Lucifer gets what he wants, no use egging him on.</p><p>It's not that Nick would ever quell Lucifer's rage- Lucifer was angry at everyone and everything all the time, and believed he was owed his Paradise, and out of all the worst offenses of the world, Sam was his, always would be, and he'd waited for him, believed in him, and Sam failed him, thrown him out like trash, and there was no going back, and Lucifer would make Sam pay for it until he knew the truth, and stopped trying to escape a game he'd never win-</p><p>When Nick and Lucifer first met, it was almost the opposite. Nick got the answer to a prayer he didn't know how to handle, and Lucifer got acceptance from someone too tired to care about the consequences of his actions because he'd much rather not exist or be aware of anything at all. And once Lucifer got that yes, he'd stuffed Nick down like it was nothing, not that Nick minded much. And by the time Sam said the one perfect word Lucifer had been waiting for, well, Nick wasn't really there, and his body was burnt from the inside out, soul practically leaving his body for the next life before Lucifer had even filled Sam up fully and jumped from host to host. Before the end, Nick was just a corpse on the floor.</p><p>You don't get to go to Heaven when you say yes to the Devil. Everyone knows that. And while Nick's accommodations weren't as cozy as his and Sam's time down in the Pit, Lucifer will admit, Nick certainly isn't a stranger to pain and torment. It didn't make him any more stable.</p><p>After Crowley stuffed Nick back inside the body to make sure Lucifer was tethered inside human flesh and intended Cage properly, Nick was pretty complacent. Easily let Lucifer run the show, and with more self-blame besides. Lucifer did remember all his time with Sam, after all, and Nick feels all that guilt for the fact that Lucifer used him to try and end the world, and Lucifer used him to get to Sam, used his body to rip apart someone kinder and stronger than him, and Nick knew deep down that he was no better than the monster that murdered his family, and that if Nick hadn't said yes, maybe nothing that happened would have happened, maybe Sam's soul wouldn't end up in the Pit and Nick wouldn't have to see the horrible things Lucifer did to him every hour of every nonexistent day, and feel some kind of connection to this not-quite-kindred spirit, but someone tied to Lucifer just like him, except Sam was someone who had dared to say no and believe in something when he had nothing to gain, when Lucifer knew Sam was just as angry as the both of them, but didn't let it consume him... And Nick retreated from that, too, because unlike Sam, he'd said yes, he hadn't protested, hadn't fought in Carthage or anywhere else. Nick knew he wasÂ a coward, only worse, because he liked that Lucifer made all the conflicted feelings die so Nick didn't feel anything at all. Lucifer was like a drug, the answer to all the pain Nick ran from. And Nick's soul made him stronger, made turning the tide against Crowley easier, because both of them hated chains.</p><p>Still. Nick blames himself for everything easily, and barely knows who he is, because all he sees is Lucifer's actions and remembers Lucifer's feelings and he tries not to drown in emotions he's not equipped to deal with. That reciprocity is what seals the deal, always reliable, because Nick learned to love Lucifer's way of doing things, learned to love all the pain they dished out together, because deep down, Nick knew himself, knew his own selfishness, and not only is it better Sam and the world than him, but more than that- if Nick can't feel regret, only joy and lust and the cessation of pain and the release of something ugly inside himself as all his memories of a time he didn't live play on repeat, all of Lucifer's memories overwhelming every particle of who he is, as he feels his face laughing and remembers all the ways Sam bled, all the ways he knew was nothing in the face of a man stronger than him...</p><p>In some ways, loathing is a lot like love. Sam was better than him, and beautiful and disgusting and deserved to suffer for it, when Nick thinks about it.</p><p>Lucifer agrees, albeit for his own reasons. His love for Sam is a selfish kind, a conquering kind, one that doesn't care if it rips Sam apart. Quite the opposite in fact, because only through pain would Sam break, and maybe then Sam would love him, Sam would see-</p><p>And even if he was never in the Cage, once Lucifer is settled back inside him, it all feels like Nick, doing the breaking or cutting the skin off Sam's bones or choking him out with the chains or throwing him down on his knees and making him scream and beg until he couldn't say anything at all-</p><p>And it felt like Nick when Lucifer did any of the "gentle" things Lucifer and Sam both knew weren't kindness, weren't tender, weren't love, just like it had been when Lucifer visited Sam's dreams to tell him resistance was hopeless and they'd always end up together, just like when Lucifer was Jess inside Sam's head before telling Sam just what he was and what Sam was to him-</p><p>And Nick knew that, too, because every recollection Lucifer had he had lived, too, once they were thrown back together again.</p><p>After Lucifer revealed himself, he'd favored Nick's form, and down in the pit, he'd taken on his likeness, too, because he'd grown comfortable in it, in all the ways it never let him down, just as he loved it for all the human ways it made Sam feel vulnerable and afraid.</p><p>Lucifer had felt comfortable in Nick's body, after all. Not as much as he was inside Sam, because Nick hadn't been strong enough before Crowley's interventions, but there was an acceptance and a letdown of guard that Lucifer could never have afforded his true vessel, because Nick understood him, and didn't fight back, because Nick worshipped Lucifer for every cessation of awareness he'd gifted him. And perhaps starting off as a way to Cage Lucifer meant he'd remembered the Cage from it's own magic, too, because only three beings had even lived down there, and two Archangels burn their mark everywhere they go, and one human soul not meant for the Pit is memorable to it, in it's own way.</p><p>Nick understood Sam more than he'd like to admit. Lucifer had been inside Sam, had seen his mind, and Nick had seen Sam through him. Had seen Sam's fear and want and blame and self-hate for being weak, for being chosen, for letting Lucifer out and not knowing what to do-</p><p>Just as he'd felt Lucifer's lust and desire to own Sam and take what belonged to him, because no matter how much Sam said no, it would become yes, because Sam was made for him, and yet Sam never let himself go under, never let Lucifer gain ground, and the chase made him want Sam more.</p><p>On Sam's end there was terror, and hate, and rage, and more fear, because of all the things Sam feared most, it was how much Lucifer could make him lose himself, too, how Sam couldn't hide from all the things Lucifer made him feel, wanted him to feel, tried to down him in-</p><p>There was betrayal, too. Sam had hoped for safety, for understanding, and the Devil offered it at the price of all of himself and the graveyard of every human on the planet.</p><p>Nick had paid the price willingly.</p><p>Sam refused and was still destroyed by it, one way or another, because only he could overtake the Devil, made to be his equal so he could house him forever.</p><p>Before the Cage, Lucifer wasn't shy about any closeness Sam might offer him. And he and Sam had been together more than once, Sam suspecting something but missing Jess too much to realize just who was in his bed with him, for once embracing the same denial Nick had long since found a home inside. Back when Sam was unaware of just who it was that kissed him and held him close and laid greedy hands on every part of his body, claiming everything that Lucifer wanted but that was kept just out of reach-</p><p>Sam had fought after Lucifer revealed himself, too, after Lucifer tried to claim the love and devotion he thought was owed to him, that Sam rebuffed, even with the false front of patience Lucifer pretended to offer because he'd thought Sam would come around anyway, because there was no other conceivable option. Just like Lucifer did both before and after Sam tried to take himself out of the script and Lucifer just brought him back, just like he promised, before Sam reunited with Dean and tried to end the Apocalypse. There were no willful concessions by Sam after that, not even after Sam said yes, but it didn't matter then, because once Lucifer had him he could do what he wanted, Sam was consumed by everything he couldn't fight, Lucifer using every bit of isolation and need for love and anger at being used and all the time they had shared to break and cut Sam down to size-</p><p>Sam had lost the battle until the graveyard.</p><p>And once they were down in the Pit, well, it's not like Lucifer felt the need to hold back or be patient. No. He would make Sam fear and worship and love him like he was supposed to, one way or another, for daring to throw everything back in his face and lock them up for all eternity. What Lucifer once pretended to wait patiently for, what he seemed to revere, was only turned into a weapon to make Sam hurt, to make Sam doubt, to make Sam break and feel all the betrayal and hurt the Devil felt, for Sam daring to defy him-</p><p>Because Lucifer knew Sam was owed to him. Sam had said yes. Sam had thrown them both down into Hell, and Sam was his forever, no matter the circumstance.</p><p>And if Sam was scared and broken by the love the Devil had for him, by all the crass and calculated and creative all the ways it mutilated him... It's not like Sam had options. Sam was still broken by Nick's hands and kicks and punches and kisses and everything Lucifer ever used Nick's form for.</p><p>Because you couldn't run from Lucifer in the Pit and expect to make it anywhere. There was no hiding. No relief.</p><p>There was no hiding inside your head when you are possessed, either.</p><p>Not unless Lucifer allowed it.</p><p>And if Nick is honest with himself, the truth is, Nick didn't have much of a concept of self to hold on to after the years and years of Lucifer's being overtook his own memories. Archangels are old, and settle over the soul, filling in all the gaps, and the Cage itself was full of horrors Nick grew used to seeing so much that he felt like part of the scenery, even if he was never there to begin with. After Lucifer had stayed inside him for so long, they bled together, unable to differentiate much from each other, because they weren't ever opposites locked in gridlock, like Lucifer and Sam had always been. And time in the Cage stretched on and on, longer than any time on earth, with both Sam and Lucifer minds older than Nick would ever be.</p><p>Nick and Lucifer were a unit, and Lucifer's wants and needs became Nick's, easy as breathing, because deep down embracing the rage and the hurt and the shame and resentment for knowing he wasn't strong enough, that he wants this, makes Nick who he is. Better to unleash all that pain on the world, instead of bottling it up inside like Sam did.</p><p>After all, look at what it did to him. Look how he couldn't even talk about it.</p><p>Nick would rather aim it all back at the world, because it was the world who had made him suffer. Anything else would be too close to getting under his skin, just like Sam had tried to get under Lucifer's, telling him they were only where they were because they made their choices, and there would always be people fighting back to stop those who would destroy everything.</p><p>Truth be told, Nick is tired. Nick is done fighting. Nick would rather be the victor on the winning side, feeling no sense of responsibility or regret and just let Lucifer's sense of purpose and euphoria take the reigns, because anything else would be seeing someone mirroring who he could've been, if he had just been stronger. The pain and blame hurts too much, just like feeling horror or disgust, does, too.</p><p>And just like all the feelings Nick felt when he was overcome by grief and pain from the loss of his family and feeling like he failed them, just like he failed the world, that he'd failed Sam Winchester, a stranger who had no right to feel familiar in any way at all- Nick promptly pushed as far away from himself as possible. Being tied to Lucifer helped with that- Lucifer regretted absolutely nothing, had reveled in it, really- and was eager to take awareness and control back because he never gave Nick real control in the first place. That's why they worked so well together.</p><p>Lucifer's grace takes a while to build itself into a physical approximation of form and waves and cold, but he beelines to Nick as much as he can, second by second, his life-force called back the more he tugs Jack further into the Empty. It's like a tow line leading him back to all his favorite people to destroy, Rowena and the annoyance that was Castiel and the Winchesters and his son.</p><p>And this time, when they join together, Lucifer won't go easy on Sam, and Nick won't mind, not after the way losing Lucifer untethered him. Not like last time, when they kept their distance except when Sam dared to get too close. Lucifer won't let Nick's apprehension or his own fears or sentimentality get in the way of reminding Sam just who he belonged to. Just who he had messed with. And Dean being destroyed, and Michael, too- well, that was just desserts, and a long, long time coming.</p><p>Boy, does it feel good to almost be back in the running again. That had not been a good way to go out, and Lucifer knows he's gotta play the field a little differently this time. Can't afford to be distracted or underestimating his enemies this time, particularly when Sam and Dean managed to set the playing field on fire again, and modeled his son after their pathetic sentiments as well.</p><p>Jack would pay, too. But Lucifer thinks he'll start with Sam.</p><p>After all, Jack won't last long enough for him to make Sam watch his son die.</p><p>--</p><p>Inside Dean, Michael stirs a little. He can feel something powerful, and hopes his experiment worked. The shaman's tactics certainly would prove interesting to observe.</p><p>--</p><p>Cas feels something, too. Something barely familiar, like the echoes of a place he'd dragged himself out of as his grasp on Heaven fades more and more.</p><p>--</p><p>At Jack's bedside, Sam holds Jack's hand and prays that they'll find someone to fix this, to save him, even though he knows Jack is barely there, slipping away by the second, and he's not sure who might be listening, and prayers are an empty gesture by now, anyway. Ever since Jack got worse, he's been here, not moving. Rowena and Cas keep trying new tactics, and Sam helps them brainstorm, and Dean paces, and-</p><p>Jack is still dying.</p><p>His son is going to die and Sam is useless and doesn't know how to save him and they can't lose him, they can't-</p><p>Sam keeps trying to think of anything he knows from the Cage, about Archangels, about all the ways grace could tear you apart and put you back together, anything that might give Jack a chance at life again.</p><p>Lucifer still ended up taking him away, Sam can't help but panic, a thin, hazy idea that he's barely able to manage.</p><p>Lucifer had died but he was still the reason Jack's grace was gone, and Sam had failed him back then just like he was failing him right now-</p><p>And now Jack-</p><p>The tears keep falling and falling, and Jack's chest barely rises and falls, and Sam wishes Nick's body was still lifeless on the floor, not walking around who knows where while Jack is dying, every second ticking away.</p><p>And Sam wishes he could've given Jack what he wanted. That he could have let go, like Dean, and given him something to distract him from all his before everything went wrong-</p><p>But he couldn't. Because every second was needed to fix this, to find some solution, but Sam still hadn't found anything, because he's useless, because there's impossible situations, and Sam doesn't know what he'll become, when he'd trade himself for Jack without a second thought.</p><p>Then Sam has a thought, a last ditch plan, why couldn't he think of it before-</p><p>Lily Sunder might have something.</p><p>Anything, anything at all, is better than nothing.</p><p>Even if trying to find a solution only hastened this along, but Lily was a friend, not a stranger.</p><p>Sam calls every number he knows, and prays to the humans he believes in.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>